


Pales in Comparison

by stupidmuse_hatesme



Series: What I Really Want [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Dependency, Dom/sub, Dubious Consent, F/M, Het and Slash, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Sadism, Slash, Sub!John, masochism?, proDom?, proSadist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-27
Updated: 2012-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-30 05:08:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidmuse_hatesme/pseuds/stupidmuse_hatesme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John knows what he wants--the problem is getting it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pales in Comparison

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS:  
> 1\. Right off the bat, John is having hardcore sex with a person who does NOT give him aftercare--and John lets him do things that make him feel uncomfortable. He is doing things to make other people happy in an effort to make _himself_ happy, and it is not working. He has flexible limits, yes, but he needs to intimacy of a caring partner to push him, and is miserable without it--this has miserable John.  
>  2\. John will be with a potential sexual partner who ditches him in the middle of subspace. This causes John to sink into sub _drop_. This is not a happy place. If you have ever been abandoned by a partner and left in this emotional state, this will be an emotionally fraught scene: READ WITH CARE.  
>  3\. BE SAFE SANE AND CONSENSUAL. John is doing several big huge no-nos here. The biggest of which is COMMUNICATION. Do _not_ follow his example. He bottles things up--things that he really needs--and it just makes him miserable. Warning for angst and incompleteness, here.
> 
> This was beta-ed by my good friend blue_eyed_1987 (Thank you Gem!) who pointed out all sorts of British inconsistencies (I'm really curious to see if there are any Brits left who use a real kettle rather than an electric one. Also? NHS really messes up fic ideas from the get go >.

“Gregory, it's just not working out.” John's hands are already shoved into his pockets, so he can't do that now. But he does shuffle from side to side a bit, uncomfortably. Not nervously, though, because he intends on standing quite firm.

“You can't just leave me,” The tall but well-built man steps forward, an entreating hand reaching out. “I don't know why you think you can just up and leave.”

“Because I'm being deployed,” John states flatly.

“Which is ridiculous,” Gregory spits. The hand falls, clenching into a fist involuntarily. “I can't believe that you requested a transfer without saying a bloody thing, I can't figure out where you got the _idea_ you could leave without my permission. You aren't allowed to leave.”

“So, now you choose to actually restrict me, Gregory?” John purposely keeps with the longer version of his lover's, ex-lover's name. Not only because it irritates the man, but because he was encouraged from the beginning to address him with intimacy. “It's not just something I can turn on-and-off when you want to play bedroom games, Greg.” _Well, a slip-up now and then isn't too bad,_ John thinks, and continues, “I'm not interested in being a weekender, and you told me that you were the same.”

“Well—”

“You lied,” John interrupts. “You met me, decided you couldn't do without me, and said what you could to keep me around even if it meant convincing me we were compatible even though we aren't.”

“What you ask for is ridiculous, John!” Gregory bursts out.

“I'm sorry you think so,” John replies. “Goodbye, Gregory. Don't worry about my stuff, I don't really need it.”

He leaves without regrets. Not even for lying: he’s been antsy to be deployed for quite a while. It’ll be his first assignment outside of the country, but he assumes that a doctor, and a good one at that, shouldn't have much trouble making it in the army.

They are rather in demand, these days.

* * *

“A~ttention!”

John's spine goes rigid, and his arms lock straight at his sides. Unlike the other young men in line, Boys, his mind intersects, They are mere boys in comparison, his breathing evens out and his mind slips into a good place.

It's not exactly what he was looking for, but it is close enough.

“Hup to, boys!”

They run in two perfect lines, and with each step John's heart beats in unison.

He knows that this is messed up, that he shouldn't be using the military, his _commanding officers_ to put himself into a good head-space, but he can't really help it.

_“It's not just something I can turn on-and-off when you want to play bedroom games, Greg.”_

John's tried relationships without it, and it never works out. He's tried being the man for a woman—the man who shows up with flowers all strong and sure of himself, all quiet assurance and proud shoulders—but by the end of the night he always ended up squirming on the bed beneath her, at the mercy of her every whim, or lying there, panting as she slammed, angry, out of his flat.

Not many women like a submissive man. Especially one like John, who has a quiet confidence that just about anyone can spot. They don't like finding out that the man they thought was strong, sure, and brave liked to be led around in the bedroom. 

What none of them understood was that he still was strong, sure, and brave.

To each their own, after all.

“Keep in line!”

In the army John can find the order he needs. The rules, the structure. It doesn't matter that there's no love in war.

He's already walled up his heart anyway.

* * *

“You like it, don't you?”

John knows better than to answer the gruff words growled into his ear as the man slams into him from behind. Instead, he grits his teeth and clenches his eyes shut, cheek grinding into the dirt floor beneath the tent.

“Slut.” The man says, nicking his prostrate to make a point. “You love having a cock up your arse.”

John's fingers grapple with the dirt, but he has no leverage. With his arse high in the air, shoulders pinned to the ground with a heavy hand, and his wrists tied carelessly together with a piece of cloth above his head, there's no way he's going anywhere. But still, he wriggles against the pounding, twitching his shoulders against the warm and rough palm as if he is trying to get away.

“Stop it,” the man hisses into his ear.

John does. For a moment, huffing as the thrusts speed up and nail his prostate every other stroke, then he thrashes about some more.

Suddenly, his knees are shoved out from under him, and he falls to the ground—hard. The body behind him follows him down, landing heavily on his back, cock still wedged firmly within him. The hand previously gripping his hip slides up to his shoulder, gripping it cruelly and holding him stiff for a harder pounding. The hand that had been on his shoulder blades seizes his neck, gripping tightly and grinding his face into the dirt. He clenches his eyes and feels the grit crumbling on his eyelashes. 

Flat on the ground, his cock pinned between his body and the dirt, John's breath whooshes out of him and leaves him breathless as the heavier man lets his whole weight crush John. His ribs scream at the pressure, his lungs wheezing at the effort of breathing, but he can feel himself grinning in sick pleasure.

This isn't what he needs, but it's as goddamned close as he's going to get in a war.

“Cockslut,” the voice spits into his ear.

John whimpers, stiffening all over.

The man stops all together, vibrating with tension, then groans loudly. A moment later, he shudders and John can feel his hot sperm rush into his canal. He thrusts shallowly a few more times, enjoying the heat, then pulls out. John can feel globules dripping out of him, but only lays there as the officer drapes himself heavily across his back.

“Good boy,” the man says.

John shudders.

“Come.”

“Aaaah!” John cries involuntarily, seizing under the man's immense weight, coming straight into the dirt. “Oh god,” he murmurs, eyes still clenched shut and breathing shallowly, heavily. “Oh god.”

The officer chuckles into his ear. “Good?”

“Good,” John repeats.

But as the man pulls back, and leaves John laying there, to pull back on his fatigues, he wishes that it hadn't just been warm breath on his ear, that he had gotten a kiss too. Maybe a nuzzle, or an endearment. But instead, he gets strong but gentle hands that rub along his quivering flanks, checking for damage, then impersonally un-knot the cloth around his wrists.

“You good?”

Exhausted, John can only murmur an assent.

“All right then,” the man ruffles his hair with a large hand. “Good night, Watson.”

He leaves John there lying on the ground, completely naked, as he returns to his own tent.

It takes John a very long time to get up, clean off, and pull his clothes back on. By the time he does, he falls onto his simple cot in the medic tent, too tired to even climb under the blanket. His body is satisfied, but his heart cries out as he slips into oblivion.

All he really wants is someone who cares enough to tell him what to do, but he supposes that sex is close enough.

* * *

“Oh my God.”

John pulls his trouser up, fastening them quickly, and glances at the younger soldier staring at him in horror. “Yes?” he asks.

“Those,” he pauses. “Those bruises are horrific.” The young man steps closer. “Good god, man. What happened?”

John just stands there impassively staring back at him as he tucks in his shirt and straightens his sleeves. “They're just bruises.”

“They look _awful,”_ the other soldier reasserts. “What on God's green earth happened to you?”

“Nothing for you to be concerned with,” John says simply, walking to his cot and beginning to yank on his boots.

“But—” 

“You really wouldn't understand,” John interrupts, tugging at the laces on his first boot, encasing his feet tightly within the scuffed leather.

“Is someone hurting you, man?” The soldier asks tentatively.

“Yes.” John sighs. “But like I said, you wouldn't understand.”

“If someone is taking advantage of you—” 

“Look, I just like getting hurt, all right?”

The man's, no, more of a boy, eyes widen in surprise, staring at John like a deer in the headlights. “Are you telling me that you...?”

“Yes,” John says simply. “I asked to get pounded into the dirt. Is that what you are asking?” He can see the horror in the boy's eyes, but he can't stop now that he's started. Nonchalantly leaning down to expose his bruised nape, he pulls on the laces of his other boot. “I like to be held down, for fingerprints to be lodged in my skin. I like to be hit and treated like crap. Given the chance, I would stand in front of a mirror and press on the bruises myself, remembering exactly how I got them. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

The boy turns white, spins on his heel, and leaves the tent as fast as he can without running.

John had lashed out to make himself feel better, because he thought quietly simmering anger and frustration was better than just feeling empty and lonely. But now that the soldier is gone, he realizes that it doesn't. He just feels weary. He lets his head fall and raises a hand to his brow, sighing in resignation. He isn't sure how much longer he can continue with this. If that young man saw his bruises and acted like that, what will happen when someone catches him literally being pounded into the dirt? 

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately: he never has the chance to find out.

* * *

The next day, he's at the front of the line with his team, with the men he was assigned to. A medic works alone, or with an assistant, but they have soldiers that they are supposed to stick with, that they are supposed to support, and the reverse is supposed to happen as well.

But when they scatter, bullets flying through the air and the battle closing in on them, John suddenly finds that no one is willing to help him.

“I need help!” he shouts to the nearest soldier. “I can't keep pressure on this at the same time as stitching it up!”

The man looks away, propping his gun on the sandbag in front of him and pretending to aim at the enemy, but he isn't even firing.

“Soldier! I need your assistance!” John shouts.

The other man doesn't even blink.

He looks around, but they are all ignoring him, leaving him to deal with the man at his feet bleeding to death. “Doesn't anyone care about his life?” he bellows. “Don't abandon him because of me!” He turns to see if there is anyone in sight that will help, but they all seem to be leaving him behind. The bullets grow thicker, and he can see the eyes of the young man who he had frightened the day before.

He still looks frightened. He looks frightened of John. Pitying. But resolved. He turns resolutely away from John and suddenly the medic knows exactly what happened.

The soldier outed him to the team, and now they want nothing to do with him. 

The man beneath his slick hands stops breathing. Focused, not panicking, John starts pumping his hands on his chest and giving him mouth to mouth. He dips down to push air into him, sits up to pump some more, and then fire shoots straight through his shoulder.

He tries to continue, but his right arm has gone completely dead. He looks down and blood blossoms from his shoulder.

“Medic!” he cries out, even though he knows he's the only one out there. Then the world tips and he falls to the side. The last things he hears are the bullets whirring through the air, and his former team firing back, leaving him to bleed into the dust.

* * *

He wakes in a hospital, delirious, where they tell him he's back in England and does he have anyone that he'd like them to contact for him?

He thinks of Greg and his poor dominating skills that almost seem perfect when drugged up to the gills. But not quite enough, Greg's not what he needs. Then he thinks of Harry and her drinking. And Clara, he cannot forget Clara when she had once dated John before she fell in love with his sister. He doesn't think he can handle being around a woman who is perfectly aware of his tendencies, though, and if very likely to look at him with pity while thinking _You won't find the strong man that you want now, John. Look at you. You're falling apart._

No. Not Greg or Harry and Clara. Who then?

No one.

“No one,” he rasps, sight already dimming as the drugs pull at him invitingly. “There's no one.”

The sad part is: it's perfectly true.

* * *

Amidst the fever dreams he thinks he cries out in the night. Or the day. He's not sure which is which anymore. He cries, the heat of the desert burning him up. He thinks he asks for someone to take care of him, which only prompts the nurses to place cool hands on his brow, and to bath him with cool water and soft cloths. It's not what he wants, though. The delicate female hands make him feel pitied, like he's this broken toy to be felt sorry for. Not something special that deserves special care. He writhes and whimpers through the infection that stemmed from the bullet wound in his shoulder wishing that someone was there to say _“I've got everything taken care of, you don't need to worry, I've got you.”_

But every time he wakes even partially lucid, no one is there.

* * *

When they let him out of the hospital and help him find a tiny little flat, John knows that he'll never go back to the army. Not his choice, no. Even though they all speak of honorable discharge and wounded in action and acts of bravery for trying to save a fellow soldier during a firefight, he knows how they all look at him.

They look at him like he is a deviant.

He is, but he wishes that he wasn't excluded from the one coping method left to him just because of that.

He wasn't one for the clubs and things before he went to Afghanistan. No man stands out more amongst the cute little submissives in their tight jeans and leather than a man who prefers cuddly jumpers. Perhaps he could have donned a shirt and jeans and been looked at as a prospective Dominant, but that wasn't what he was looking for. It doesn’t matter, anyways, those doors are permanently closed to him now that he limps around with a cane.

He'll never admit to his therapist that it's more the fact that he's tired of taking care of himself that gives him nightmares than PTSD or anything about the war. The only reason why he dreams of it is because of the betrayal of his team. How he was left behind because of who he is.

He wants to rage and scream in his blog. He wants to find someone to take back to his wretched flat so that he doesn't have to curl up on his tiny bed all alone anymore. He wants to wake up in the morning to the kettle already on and a firm but gentle hand in his hair.

But every morning he wakes, gasping, alone, and every day the cursor on his laptop blinks as his blog just sits there emptily. He's not really sure he can do this anymore. He aches with this vibrating tension. It screams, _do something, be useful, don't just sit around,_ but the only things he has going for him are his therapist and his blog.

His failing blog.

_I never meet anyone,_ he types. _I'm not sure I want to anymore._

He stares at the stark sentence on the screen, lifts a finger, and then depresses the delete button. When the entry is gone, he types _Nothing ever happens to me._

He hits post, but the original entry sits in his head like a live thing, reminding him how he's falling apart.

But he's a soldier, an army man. He's strong. He's always been strong. He gets up in the morning, makes his own tea, dutifully walks around the city in an effort to dissuade the limp that everyone tells him isn't actually real, and soldiers through ridiculous appointments with a pitying quack who can never understand what it's like to be him.

Nonetheless, he slides open the left drawer of his desk, of this _place's_ desk, and pulls out his gun. He checks it—it's loaded. It would be so easy to....

No.

He places it back in the drawer and shuts it firmly. He's going for a walk.

Last night was a particularly bad one. He dreamt of strong, thin, sure hands. One held him by the nape, a strong presence that forced him to look down, the other one simply held him around the wrist tightly. That's all. He stood, head bowed, with only two points of contact. But the firm grip around his wrist hit all the right pressure points, making him weak in the knees, and the comforting grasp around his neck made every muscle in his body loose. The person holding him stood behind him where he couldn't see him; he presumed the person was a he by the large hands, but he was okay with that. He was relaxed; he trusted.

He doesn't remember ever feeling that way around anyone in his entire life.

* * *

When he was fifteen, he had his first run-in with his sexuality. That's patently not true—it popped up fairly often, but this was the first time that it made itself so obvious that it was a true problem. John was at a mate's house, watching the telly in the tiny flat his mate shared with his single mother. The boy's bedroom (his name was Stephen) was so small that there was barely room for anything but the bed. But the boys didn't mind. They just sprawled across it and crawled to the door without a door every time they needed to get up. 

Stephen was seventeen. He didn't even go to school. But John's mom didn't really care where he went, and Stephen had a _car_ , which pretty much trumped everything else, including his mother.

“You know,” Stephen said off-hand, still staring at the telly and the cartoons playing on it. “I think I might fancy you.”

John inhaled a crisp. “Sorry,” he said, amidst his coughing. “You what?” 

“I want to snog you,” Stephen turned to John, his brown hair cascading across his forehead and framing his bright blue eyes. “Is that all right with you?”

John cleared his throat and wiped his suddenly clammy, and salty from the crisps, hands on his jeans. “Well, uh, I've never really thought about it.”

“But you fancy me?”

“You're uh...”John flushed and looked up shyly at the older boy's encouraging smile. “You are quite fit.” He leaned forward inexorably, his eyelashes fluttering shut, and missed the flash of fear that sparked across Stephen's face. Lips met, two sets of soft boy lips, and John felt like he was melting. It was like lightening shooting down his spine. He wanted to lay back, be pressed down into the mattress, and simply _give._

Stephen, on the other hand, was groping at John. “C'mon,” he murmured. “C'mon, c'mon. Kiss me. Do what you like.” He urged John to come closer, to grab at him also, but all John was capable of was clinging to the edge of Stephen's shirt and shivering from all of the sensations.

Stephen sighed in his mouth and pushed John back, twisting his legs into John's and flipping them so that he lay on top. John missed the pillow, his head falling to the mattress, but he didn't mind. There was warm _warmth_ above him. He writhed and whimpered into the weight.

“Give it to me, give it to me,” the other boy murmured desperately, urging John to kiss back harder.

But he dragged his fingers across a sensitive place behind John's ear and all was lost. He was falling. The room was gone, all there was was the press of the body above him. There was murmuring but he couldn't quite hear it. It wasn't important. All that was important was getting all of the sensations he could while still staying pliable for his partner. All he wanted to do was stay still while reciprocating into those hot wet kisses. The weight wasn't enough, he wanted pressure around his wrists and he wanted to be held down, told that he was safe. He was safe—the person above him protected him. 

Every single glancing touch zinged through him. He shivered and gasped and he had no idea what was going on. He had no idea what he was feeling and why he wasn't doing what everyone in the films always did. He didn't know why he wasn't groping Stephen's arse or reaching for his prick, or even why his own prick didn't seem all that important at that moment.

Then the weight was gone.

Unbelieving, John just lay there panting for a moment. He heard Stephen's feet hit the floor. “I'm gonnna go get some more crisps, mate.”

John's soul _cried._

He wasn't sure why, but he was lost and adrift without that touch, without the warmth of the skin that was so briefly pressed against his. He reached out, beckoning it back, but Stephen didn't come back. John didn't open his eyes, falling into the darkness. He shivered, lying exactly where he was, thinking that was what the other boy wanted. If he stayed right where he left him, Stephen would think him a good boy, would come and save him from falling.

John heard the telly in the sitting room click on.

“You just take a nap, eh?” he thought he heard. 

But he was falling, falling into despair. His body was wracked by shudders and he stifled whimpers as he curled into himself and wondered why he was falling apart. Everything seemed so lost, so dark, so lonely.

The first time John experienced subspace was also the first time he experienced subdrop. He nursed himself through the dark thoughts of being abandoned in a tiny room, engulfed by a large bed, all by himself, not understanding the large and scary feelings coursing through him. 

“You all right, mate? Want some chips?” 

John cracked open an eye and saw Stephen standing in the doorway, a large bag cradled in one arm. 

“Come join me watching telly,” the older boy offered.

John closed his eye and shuddered. What a mess.

* * *

John thinks on that now, on that disaster, as he limps down the street aimlessly. He endeavors not to look aimless, like he has a destination. But he doesn't.

Stephen was afraid of him. He had conflicting wants. He wanted someone to be in charge other than himself and thought John was the strong person for that. But he was also afraid of power, permanently fractured from his older brother molesting him when he was a child. When John merely tried to show how much he wanted Stephen in return, he would always retreat, leaving John broken, falling to pieces amongst the blankets and pillows of his friend's bed.

Eventually, Stephen had shoved him away permanently. John would have done anything that boy asked—including being in charge—but Stephen just couldn't understand how someone could willingly give up power like that. It frightened him.

The only reason why it didn't frighten John was because it felt so _right._

John grips his cane in his steady right hand, his left trembling at his side, and limps past a park. The sun is shining, odd for dreary London, and there are many people shoving past him. He has only been able to merely _taste_ his submission, find it where he could, fight for it. No one has been willing to take everything he could give and give themselves in return. He doesn’t even necessarily need that: he just wants the other person to take _everything_ he has on offer. His well-being, his body, his heart.

The officer in the army was a poor choice because although he had plenty of experience and knew exactly how to make a submissive's nerves thrum, he didn't feel that it was his duty to take care of John afterwords. He felt that John was nothing more than a whore, offering up his gifts to whoever would take them. Unsatisfactory, but the only thing John had going for him at the time.

“John?” someone called out.

John kept walking steadfastly.

“John Watson? Is that you?”

Reluctantly, he stops and turns to see who it was. A large man lumbers through the crowd towards him.

The man offers his hand, panting with sweat dripping down his brow. “Stamford. Mike Stamford? From Barts?”

“Ah, yes.” John replies, shaking his head and knocking away the memories. “I remember.” Unasked for, the memory of Mike reverently tucking a lock of John's hair behind his ear and smiling at his full body shudder floats to the surface. _“You're so sensitive,”_ he had murmured. _“So submissive.”_

_“Is that what I am?”_ John had replied. _“Submissive?”_

Mike had kissed him gently on his forehead and murmured _“Yes, and it's so beautiful.”_

John frowns, latching back onto the here and now.

“...back from the War, right? I heard you got shot,” Mike looks at him expectantly. “What happened?”

John looks back impassively. “I got shot.”

Mike only laughs. “That's the John I know. C'mon, join me for a coffee.”

Mike was always too soft for John, but the tug that goes straight to his gut has him automatically agreeing nonetheless. Mike is harmless, anyway. He's the sweetest Dominant in the world and would never take advantage of John.

That was part of the problem.

“So,” Mike asks over their coffee in the dim little shop. “What are you up to?”

“Not much,” John replies. “Really, absolutely nothing. Just...drifting.”

Mike eyes him perceptively, but doesn't pry. “Where are you staying right now? With Harry?”

“Well, that's the thing,” John admits. “I can't afford to live alone any longer, not in London, so I'm thinking about getting another place. But who would want to live with me?” _Who could I trust to have around when I'm a submissive without a tether?_ he really asks.

Mike blinks. “Well the odd thing is, you aren't the first person to say that to me today.”

“I wasn't?”

Mike grins. “How'd you like to meet the bloke?”

John swallows a gulp of his coffee and thinks it over. If Mike was even offering, then the other fellow couldn't be too bad. Not if he had earned Mike's star of approval.

“Sure, what could it hurt?”

* * *

“Afghanistan, or Iraq?”

The voice shoots straight down his spine, like a commanding officer's, and locks in, forcing him to stand almost at attention. For a moment, he forgets his cane. Then his leg twitches so he leans on it slightly.

“Sorry?”

A tall scarecrow of a man turns towards John, and dangerous blue eyes glinted behind baby curls of midnight black. “Afghanistan,” he repeats. “Or Iraq?”

John shakes his head and glances back at Mike who only smiles and waves his hand encouragingly.

“How do you like the violin?” The man says suddenly. 

“Pardon?”

“The violin,” he says impatiently, turning back to his experiment. “I like to play it at all hours. And sometimes, I don't say a word for days on end.”

John swallows, trying to wade through the rich voice and find the sense that he knew lurked in it.

“It's fine, the violin's fine. What do you mean?”

“Well,” the man replied, dropping a chemical into a beaker (that John is certain wasn't going to react well. Ah yes, it sends up a puff of smoke a moment later) and turning away from John. “I told Mike just this morning that I was looking at a flatmate, and here he is, looking absolutely smug with himself, an invalided and penniless soldier by his side.” His eyes flick towards John and then away. “A doctor, am I correct?”

John clears his throat. “Well, yes.” He grasps at straws. “Are you telling me that you're honestly considering us being flatmates?” His voice rises incredulously. 

“I've already decided.” He whirls away from the work station and throws on his coat. “221B Baker street, 7 pm tomorrow.” He strides for the door.

“But you don't even know me!” John cries out. 

Sherlock ducks back in, a wicked glint in his eyes. “You're a soldier recently invalided from the war. You therapist says that your limp is psychosomatic, she's correct by the way, but you really were shot, and most probably even injured where your limp resides. You have a brother who cares about you, but because of his failing marriage and alcohol problem you would rather not live with him. In fact, I suspect that there's history between you and the wife that gives you even more reason to stay as far away as possible. I know you're a doctor because you know Mike and you're familiar with Barts, studied here at some point I should expect, and you've returned to London because you have nowhere else to go but she is slowly but surely sapping all of your funds. You feel lost and directionless because...Well,” he pauses with a smirk. “That would be telling. Sherlock Holmes,” he offers. “Tomorrow, 7 pm.” Then he's gone.

The wire holding him upright snaps with the man's exit and John sags, leaning heavily on his cane.

“Well,” Mike says with a cheerful smile. “How did you like him?”

* * *

If John had thought living with a flatmate would help, he has no idea why he thought this. Oh, Sherlock and Mycroft were right: he does miss the war. He misses excitement and being useful. But that's only because he used war for a substitute. But life with Sherlock? Sherlock isn't a substitute for a substitute. He is something _better._ He is the excitement of war, being useful, and taking orders all wrapped into one. The man drives him nuts, of course, but he seems to accidentally hand just what John needs to him at the most opportune moments.

* * *

“John,” Sherlock calls from the living room. “That's your 5th pot of tea. Give it up and go to bed.”

Without a murmur, John does, dragging himself up the stairs.

In the morning, Sherlock is still pawing through photos and muttering under his breath, a permanent line of frustration across his forehead, but John feels rested and oddly cheerful.

“Tea?” he asks as he pads to the kitchen.

“Yes,” Sherlock says absently. “Wait, no.” he leaps up. “That's it! The murder weapon was a tea pot, and if we find that, the sister's fingerprints will _surely_ be on it.” He whirls to John in excitement. “Well, come on, John. We've got a murderer to catch.”

John smiles, helpless in the face of his fervor. “Do we?”

“Could be dangerous,” Sherlock offers.

“I'll get my gun.”

* * *

John volunteers, on top of his locum work, at a homeless shelter in a bad part of town. At least, he does this with some regularity until Sherlock shows up one evening looking rather solemn. John is lighting the back of a young boy's throat with a flashlight when Sherlock appears at his shoulder.

“Hallo,” John says absently. “If we've got a case, I'm afraid I haven't the time.”

“John,” Sherlock only says.

So he looks up, “Yes?”

It was a mistake. Sherlock's intense eyes lock onto his and hold him in place, making him feel ridiculous for still cupping the boy's jaw in his hand.

“You haven't been home in days.”

“I've been busy.” He wrenches himself away, but it's an effort. 

“I checked with the desk, they say you'll be here until ten.”

“Yes,” John replies, squinting into the throat and hoping that he doesn't see what he thinks he does. “They need someone to volunteer for late shifts. These are people who prefer not to go to hospital—so this is the only help they'll get.”

_“John.”_

John lets the boys mouth close and shuts off his flashlight. “Right, looks like you've got a throat infection. I'll see about getting you some antibiotics. You're a bit young for snogging, eh? Well, don't start now: you're contagious.”

“You've got an early shift with Sarah tomorrow.”

“Why yes,” John says loftily. “I do.”

“John.” Sherlock steps in closer. “This is ridiculous. You nag me about my eating and sleeping habits, but you're working yourself into the ground.”

“Just trying to be useful.” He urges the boy to open his mouth again and takes one last look at the back of his throat. “Like you, you keep the oddest hours.”

“Don't compare yourself to me,” Sherlock hisses.

“Of course not,” he lets go of the boy's jaw, patting him on the knee and turning away. “I'm much too much of an idiot to be you, aren't I? Just trying to do my part, Sherlock.”

Sherlock grabs his arm, arresting his forward movement. Everything seems to screech to a halt.

_He's touching my arm, no, he's gripping my arm, my God it'll leave bruises and for heaven's sake don't react inappropriately, there are too many people about. He has no idea what he's doing, brush it off._

“Come _home_ , John.”

“I told you, Sherlock, I'm too busy for a case.” He pulls away from Sherlock to find a nurse who could help him get antibiotics. He's fairly certain that it's a throat infection and wants to help the boy get better. He really wishes that he wasn't some kid in here all by himself—where is his mother? And after him there's that girl with a sprained wrist who's been waiting for over an hour...

He continues working, aware that Sherlock is leaning against the wall of the large room that vaguely reminds him of a medic tent in Afghanistan, except that it has partitions for privacy when needed, and looks oddly like some sort of dark angel watching over him. He can feel his perceptive eyes on him at every moment.

They really don't help him ignore the fact that _both_ of his hands are trembling at this point, and that he's been ignoring the flicker of vertigo from dehydration for hours. Now that Sherlock has pointed out that he's overworking himself, he doesn't want to admit that he's right. He wants to make sure all these kids are in good hands, that he makes a difference, that this feeling of not being useful will go away—he lists to the side and stumbles, vertigo rushing in his ears for a moment. 

When he rights himself, Sherlock is at his elbow. 

“Right,” the detective says. “That's enough, that nice lady at reception says that you can go, they'll be fine.” He steers John away from his patients.

“But—” he argues.

“I don't want to hear it,” Sherlock snaps, and the tone of his voice hits John in a very vulnerable place, causing him to lean on Sherlock's support much more than he would care to admit. “I'm taking you home, and that's it.”

Despite his exhaustion, John lays in bed, awake, for a very long time that night. Well, lying would imply that he's on his back, or relaxed. Instead, he's curled in a fetal position, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, as he lies there stiff with tension. Of course Sherlock came to get him. If he died from exhaustion, who would shoot crazy cabbies for him? He wouldn't have someone to make the tea, or buy the shopping, or listen to his crazy deductions and tell him that he's brilliant instead of just telling him to piss off.

John falls asleep, brow furrowed, thinking that it's very sad that he is so dependent upon a roommate that probably doesn't even realize it.

In the morning, he's going to find another outlet for this tendency of his that he just can't smother.

* * *

First, he tries one of those places that hurts people for a living. It's bloody expensive, and after one go of it he knows it's not for him. That's all they do: they hurt people. But that's not what it is for John. He gives himself up for the other person. The people wielding the strap, or whip, or paddle—whatever you choose—isn't looking to take care of you. They just want to hurt you. He craves a connection with the person at the other end. He wants to be held and told that he did well, he wants to be held down personally by someone, not by chains. Chains are nice, but skin is better. Personal power over tools is what gets him off quickest. He doesn't need anything fancy.

The sterile environment has his hackles up immediately, and he just can't manage to relax enough for the session that he requested at all. He's so tense and uncomfortable, that he feels himself falling into sub-drop within minutes, and calls a halt to the proceedings.

To his credit, the bloke hurting him drops a hand to his shoulder and squeezes it warmly. “You all right mate? You don't seem like it.”

He appreciates the kindness, but this is his job. People come here because they are masochists, or they are trying to repent for something. Not because they are looking to be dominated.

“Just let me down,” John murmurs. “This isn't really working.”

The large hands release the leather cuffs, guiding John's arms back down to his sides. He appreciates this, as he can feel the strain in his shoulder already. He stoops, the bruises not at all a nice feeling, and picks up his shirt and jumper. He drags them both over his head with trembling fingertips. 

“Really mate, you okay?” He turns John and looks into her eyes, narrowing when he catches John's blown pupils. “Bloody hell. You aren't in this for the pain, are ya mate?”

John pulls away. “I'm just gonna go, yeah? This was a stupid idea.” 

The man reaches for John's arm but let's his hand drop. “Jesus,” he breathes. “I can't let you out of here dropping like that. C'mon, you've got another half an hour, no one will know if you just sit with me for a while.”

“No,” John says in a detached voice. “No one will, because I've got to go.” He lifts his trousers from the floor and pulls them over his pants, he never took them off, and buttons them with fumbling fingers. His phone buzzes in his pocket, so he fishes it out, looking for an excuse to avoid the narrowed and skeptical gaze being aimed right at him.

_Where are you?_   
_SH_

“Thanks anyway,” John says, leaving and hoping his pride isn't left in tatters behind him. Why he thought a stranger hitting him would do the trick was beyond him. It was a stupid idea. But as he leaves he can feel that gaze behind him, and wants nothing more than to turn back and fall into his arms, stealing the comfort he's been searching for since he can remember. Shoulders stiff, he walks out without turning back.

_I'm in a cab_

He hits send as he leans back against the seat in said cab, and only has to wait a moment for the next chime.

_Landmark?_   
_SH_

_I'll be home in twenty minutes_ , he reassures Sherlock.

_Unsatisfactory. Street names?_   
_SH_

He leaves the text unanswered and closes his eyes, his hand holding the mobile falling to his lap.

It chimes again, and he's torn between the impulses of sighing, or smiling at Sherlock's persistence.

“Girlfriend?” the cabby asks. “Seems persistent,” he notes.

“Persistent, yes, a girl he is not.” John murmurs.

“What's that?”

“It's just my flatmate,” John says. “Probably asking for milk.”

The phone chimes again, but this time it dances in the tune that indicates an incoming call and plays for an extended moment. John lets it ring, watching it until it repeats. Someone is calling, and he has a suspicion as to whom.

He tilts it so that he can see the screen, and blinks at the name dominating the screen

_Sherlock Holmes_

Bemused, he thumbs the accept button and lifts the phone to his ear. “H'lo?”

“Are you being obtuse?” Sherlock demands.

“Nice to hear from you, too, Sherlock,” John replies.

“Where _are_ you.”

“I've had a lovely day,” John lets his eyes fall closed and settles down comfortably on the leather seat. “How about you?”

“ _John_. You went out several hours ago, and it's to your credit that it took me two of those to realize that you didn't go anywhere you normally go. You dressed too comfortably to be going out to the pub with friends, or to see Sarah, and you haven't any work on today, Mycroft didn't kidnap you, and it's been much too long for the store.”

John lets a smile creep across his face. “Are you telling me that I've stumped you? You, the great Consulting Detective?”

“That is _beside_ the point,” his flatmate snaps. “Stop trying to distract me, and tell me _exactly_ where you are _right now_.”

John answers automatically, “Tottenham Court Road,” then he realizes that Sherlock pretty much has the entire contents of Google Maps inside of his head and can use the tiniest thing to figure out where he's been. So he estimates and gives a point ahead of where he actually is to throw Sherlock off. “Just about to turn on Euston.”

“No you aren't,” he can hear Sherlock frowning. “You aren't nearly close enough to the—” 

“Sherlock,” John interrupts. “What do you want, exactly?”

“I just want to know where you are.”

“Well,” John says, perplexed. “You do now. But why is this so important?”

“You'd gone somewhere I couldn't follow,” Sherlock says simply.

John feels like he may have stopped breathing. He lets out a little sigh, then breaths slowly and deeply, replying soothingly “I haven't been taken, Sherlock.”

“Just. Just come straight home, John.” Sherlock says.

Then the connection dies.

John pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at the screen. _That was...weird, actually,_ he thinks, not entirely surprised that Sherlock hung up on him.

He lets his hand drop to his lap and stares at the mobile loosely gripped by it for a few minutes before letting his chin drop to his chest and his eyes fall closed.

“Here's your stop, mate.”

John startles, then clambers out of the cab. “Thanks,” he says, pulling out his wallet belatedly.

“Good luck with the flatmate,” the cabdriver replies.

John smiles to himself ruefully.

He rather thinks that he'll need it.

* * *

But when John gets inside, Sherlock seems rather bound and determined to ignore him. This is good in some ways, and bad in others. Since Sherlock is distracting himself, he isn't pestering John, but since he is doing it by sulking on the couch, John feels rather exposed. He walks through the sitting room to the kitchen and asks, “Tea? I feel like a cuppa.”

Sherlock grunts in return and John wonders what happened to the man who was so antsy at his absence that he impatiently called John and demanded his location so he could mentally track the cab’s route and figure out how long it would be until his flatmate returned.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

John knows that Sherlock pays attention even when he doesn’t pay attention, however, so he endeavors to cross the flat carefully and without showing his stiffness. Right now the bruises only sting, but soon they will sink deep into his skin and spread an ache that will make him lethargic and loathe to move—that would be like casting a warning sign for Sherlock with red fireworks complete with a marching band. Sherlock has an alarming tendency to blurt out whatever he’s thinking at any given moment and John would rather that Sherlock _didn’t_ suddenly announce (in public, at home, it didn’t matter) that John likes to be hit.

Especially since that isn’t really true. If John liked to be hit, he wouldn’t be regretting the bruises on his arse, back, and thighs right now. He wouldn’t be wishing that he hadn’t spent that ridiculous sum on that silly place and instead could go out for takeaway tonight. If John liked to be hit, he would still be under that man’s crop and he wouldn’t _mind_ if Sherlock observed that he liked to be hit.

The kettle clicks, signaling that the water is boiling, so he moves to finish making the tea—but a low voice arrests him.

“You’re hurt,” Sherlock rumbles.

_Well,_ John thinks. _That certainly didn’t take long._ “Am I?” The doctor replies as he adds sugar and tea bags to their mugs and pours the steaming water over them. He stands with his muscles as relaxed as he can while the tea steeps and tries to radiate unconcern from every pore in an attempt to throw Sherlock off. “You’d think I’d notice if I was.”

“Let me tend to them,” Sherlock urges. “I won’t speak. I won’t—” He pauses for a painful sounding swallow. “Deduce. I won’t deduce where they came from, but please—let me tend to your bruises.”

John’s eyes fall shut and he swallows too, overwhelmed by the rasp of anxiety in Sherlock’s voice. If he had thought his flatmate had sounded bad when he had called John in the cab and had admitted that he had no idea where John had gone, he sounds thrice as bad right this second.

“All right,” John murmurs.

They stand in the kitchen for a long moment as John pushes down all of his nerves and his anxiety and endeavors to make himself loose and pliable for his flatmate. Sherlock needs this. He can tell without even looking at the man that this need to care for John’s injuries is a deep seated conviction that he can’t shake. Sherlock vibrates with such need from where he stands behind John that the doctor can nearly feel it in the air. His own needs and wants are subsumed by the detective’s: whatever Sherlock needs, John will do his damndest to give it to him.

Sherlock’s powers of observation really shouldn’t surprise John anymore. He doesn’t know whether it’s from John’s quiet assent or even the relaxation of his shoulders, but after a moment Sherlock takes the reigns and readily shucks the anxiety that had colored his voice only moments before.

“Upstairs,” he orders. “Get undressed and lie on your front on your bed. Wait for me.”

John nods and leaves without a word.

John doesn’t know what keeps Sherlock, but he has the time to ascend the stairs and leave his clothes in a pool on the floor before he hears a creak in the doorway behind him. 

“On the bed,” Sherlock says quietly.

John steps forward then crawls onto the covers to drop onto his stomach. He wonders if he should find the silence uncomfortable but the commands hovering invisibly in the air reassure him like no other words can and cause him to shift once then fall still. The air is warm in his attic room and plays along his skin gently ruffling the hair on his back and arms. The blanket catches on the skin on his rough knees in a soft counterpoint to the breeze of Sherlock’s passing prickling along his spine. His breaths are quiet and smooth and he can feel himself sinking into a mindset where he’s happy to give Sherlock whatever he needs.

He’s always happy to give Sherlock whatever he needs, but he had previously imagined that would only involve ridiculous trips across town to fetch the detective’s mobile or to ascertain the cause of death of a person at a crime scene that Sherlock already had figured out.

Despite being naked and face down on a bed for Sherlock, however, John shies away from the idea that perhaps he has always wanted to give Sherlock _more_.

The skin on his shoulders twitch when Sherlock presses a flat palm to John’s scapula. After the heat of his hand has soaked into John's skin he allows his thumb to drift to John’s clavicle and press into the muscle up there. He squeezes then drags his hand down John’s spine as though he is counting every single vertebra his fingers dance across. Just the one hand seems to complete a circuit between the two men that John had no idea was flickering in mid-air with nowhere to go. Every inch of his skin prickles for more of the touch and his breath begins to rasp a little. At his sides he has to force his hands not to clutch the coverlet or the skin of his thighs.

Sherlock would notice.

“I’m going to clean the abrasions, then put cream on the bruises.”

John ducks his head in assent and buries his face in his pillow. He shuts his eyes and pretends that he isn’t in over his head.

“John,” Sherlock says.

“Yes,” he replies. “That’s…fine. Yes, Sherlock.”

The scent of surgical spirit is sharp and should shoot John out of his muzzy and weary headspace. But the scent of it reminds him of the surgery and tending people on the battlefield so it merely chases him deeper into his mind as he relaxes even more fully onto the bedspread. The first touch of the cloth to his back is chill and he tenses in an effort not to jump or startle.

“Let me,” Sherlock murmurs. “Let me.”

John takes a deep breath and exhales into his pillow. He hadn’t thought that the…professional…who had beat him had broken the skin, but the cloth (soft as it is) stings and catches on the welts on his back. He won’t move, though: Sherlock asked him not to. John tries not to think too deeply about that.

The detective gently smooths the cloth over every single welt on John’s back, arse, and thighs. He inspects each individually with his curious eyes and patient fingers and makes sure they are completely clean before moving onto the next. He doesn’t skirt around the sore spots and instead gives each his complete and full attention.

John isn’t certain that he’s ever been under such scrutiny in his entire life. He thinks it could possibly go to his head, though.

“Anything on the front?” Sherlock asks briskly.

“No,” John says into his pillow, his face flushing a ruddy red. He hides it against the pillowcase, but suspects that the blush has crept along his neck and down his shoulder blades.

Sherlock pulls the cloth away. “Stay still, let it dry.”

John’s skin prickles in the air from the chill alcohol drying across the back of his body. Goosebumps shudder to life and his fingers curl towards his thighs. He shivers. He’s naked in front of Sherlock and Sherlock isn’t saying anything. His hands don’t touch John and the cloth is gone and his flatmate is so quiet and John is desperately afraid that he’s done something irreparable to their relationship all because of his silly needs—

“Hush,” Sherlock says as he drops a hand to the back of John’s neck. “Calm yourself.”

John abruptly realizes that his breathing has grown harsher and on each exhalation a tiny whimper has slipped out and that his fingernails are digging into his skin and most likely leaving little red crescents in their wake. “I—we shouldn’t—I’m sorry—” John gasps, twisting under Sherlock’s firming grip.

Heat drops close to John’s back as Sherlock’s hand tightens and another slips around one of his wrists to squeeze tightly. “Hush, I said. You promised me this, give it up.” The detective’s shirt hovers close to John’s skin and he can nearly feel it. “Calm yourself and give it to me,” Sherlock says on a whisper of breath against the shell of John’s ear.

John grinds his face into the pillow and tenses all over. He did. He promised. He hasn’t a clue why and he hasn’t a clue what is going on or what he agreed to or why he went to that place tonight—

_“John,”_ Sherlock says in a warning tone. “Stop it, _now_.”

John sighs explosively and his muscles release all of their tension with gigantic shudders that ripple across his spine and shoulders and legs and make him feel like he had seized up entirely from the stress of his panic.

Sherlock keeps his hand on the back of John’s neck but only keeps a hold of John’s wrist for another moment before squeezing briefly and releasing. His hand drifts up John’s side to his shoulder and squeezes between the bruises and the welts as he puffs hot air through the spiky strands of John’s hair on his head. Sherlock’s breaths are nearly silent but John can feel each exhalation against his skin and ears.

“I’m going to put the antiseptic cream on your bruises now,” Sherlock rumbles.

The hairs on the back of John’s neck stand up and he has to strangle a whimper.

“You are going to hold still and let me.”

John has to clear his throat to answer weakly, “yes.”

Sherlock pushes up and away from John, his hands firm and burning pressure points against John’s skin. His muscles flex and ripple under the weight as Sherlock levers himself off the bed. He cracks open a tin and John can smell the cream before it’s applied to his skin.

“Be still,” Sherlock murmurs.

So John does.

 

When John wakes, he is still flat on his stomach on his bed, completely naked, but a blanket has been pulled up to his shoulders and carefully tucked around him. 

He can still feel the heat of Sherlock’s hands on his back and thighs. He shivers.

“Crap,” he groans.

The remnants of the sub-space that Sherlock had sent him spiraling into the night before still hover in wisps about his consciousness. They make him feel relaxed and unworried, like he hasn’t got anything to worry about. His muscles are loose, and for a moment he completely forgets about the night before.

Then he shifts. 

“Urgh,” he moans into his pillow, clenching his eyes shut against the dull throb of the bruises all over him. But instead of the anticipated sick feeling he expects to receive from dropping during a session of being beaten, he remembers Sherlock’s dexterous hands soothing away the hurts last night instead.

_“Calm yourself and give it to me,”_ Sherlock had said on a whisper of breath against the shell of John’s ear.

John shudders. It’s not fair for him to take advantage of Sherlock like this. And as he lays on his stomach like a helpless babe, the last remnants of his sub-space drifting away, he realizes that he _is_ taking advantage of Sherlock. He might bully the man into eating and sleeping, but everyone knows that doctors are the most stubborn patients. Whenever John pushes himself beyond what he should Sherlock is always there to give him a shove towards the sofa or his bed all the while telling him in short phrases that he ought to knock it off and take care of himself. He’s purposely letting things go too far so that Sherlock picks up the slack, and that’s not on.

So John asks Mike to set him up.

 

“Uhm,” John says, flushing across his cheekbones. “Hi,” he continues, a clammy hand raised to the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I’m John.”

The woman is very pretty; he’ll give Mike that much credit. She’s also taller than John, and would be even without her heels, and the doctor isn’t sure what to think of that.

She smiles a shark’s smile and extends a hand. She doesn’t do it for a handshake.

John drops his hand and clasps hers in both of his before raising it to his lips for a chaste kiss across her knuckles.

“Michelle,” she says melodiously. “Very nice,” she compliments after he releases her hand. 

He blushes again. He’s hideously out of practice with this sort of thing. Not that he ever had a lot of it.

“Shall we?”

She smiles at his discomfort and he wonders if she whitens her teeth. There isn’t any possible way they could be that nice looking normally. She has red and wavy hair that tumbles artfully around her face and shoulders and wears delicate touches of makeup on her lips and eyes—just enough to draw attention to her beautiful face and bright blue eyes.

“Yes,” she agrees, turning and offering John her arm to clasp. “We shall.”

John is only wearing a button up and slacks, but she is wearing a beautiful blue sundress and strappy heeled sandals that make her look very fetching when she walks. The skirt swirls around her and gives her a feminine grace John hasn’t had the chance to admire since he left for the war.

He takes her arm.

“Mike says that you were in the army?” she asks as she leads him away.

“Yes, I mean, I was. Well, not really. I was in the RAMC.” He clears his throat and backtracks. “The Royal Army Medical Corp, I mean. Uh, but yes, I was a soldier. Well, a medic. I’m a doctor,” he finishes.

Michelle laughs and pats his hand where he’s trying desperately not to clutch at her arm. “Don’t be nervous, I won’t bite.” She turns and smiles her predatory smile at him again. “Much.”

John gulps as her perfectly manicured nails dig into the fragile skin of his hand. Mike knows the strangest of people.

 

Michelle isn’t a bad date. She takes him out three times to show him off amongst her crowd and takes him back to her flat each and every time. She has a liking for leaving vicious bites on his collarbone and lower neck where his shirts can cover the damage. The bruises last for days. But she isn’t interested in a full-time sub and tells him so. She also doesn’t think she is quite what he is looking for.

“You need a man, honey,” she tells him after she has tied him down, her nails scratching firmly down his chest and causing him to wiggle and gasp for air. “Not a little girl like me.”

Next is Jasper. Jasper doesn’t talk much. He is six foot two with brown hair, brown eyes, plain looks, and a penchant for leather and games in clubs. John politely says no and they go their separate ways.

Jules reminds John of one of the boys from the Beatles and has nearly the same unfortunate haircut. He also has a very evident sense of humor and likes to switch.

“I can’t always be on top, honey,” he tells John. “I’ve got needs too.”

He lasts two dates.

 

“None of these people are your type, John,” Sherlock announces one night after a long day at the surgery. “I don’t know why you bother.”

John lets the door shut gently behind him even though he sorely wants to slam it. Mrs. Hudson wouldn’t appreciate it. “Hullo Sherlock,” John says wearily. “How are you? I’m fine, if a bit tired. Long day at work. Done anything interesting today?”

“Boring,” Sherlock flaps a dismissive hand over his head. He’s laying on the sofa like a fainting damsel. Again. “Back to your escapades in dating: you should just quit. You’re not getting anything out of them.”

John hangs his coat on the coat stand and says mildly, “How would you know anything about what I need, Sherlock? It’s not like you date people or anything.”

“I’m dating _you,_ ” Sherlock replies.

“That’s not funny, Sherlock,” John snaps, bending over and yanking his shoes off. “We’re not dating and it’s not nice to say that sort of thing to someone out of the blue like that just for fun. And also, if we were, I bloody well wouldn’t cheat on you so we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Which brings us back to the fact that you haven’t a clue what I need and you should just butt out.”

John straightens then stiffens when he feels a gust of hot air across the back of his neck.

“Don’t I?” Sherlock rumbles.

John lashes out. He spins and throws an elbow backwards whilst cocking the other hand for a punch. He’s _angry._ He’s sick and tired of being on edge all of the time. He’s tired of doing things to get Sherlock’s attention, getting it briefly, and then having the man wander off. He’s fed up of being wound up by his _infuriating_ flatmate and now he just wants to beat the living daylights out of him.

“Shut. _Up._ ” John snarls.

The next thing he knows, he’s face down on the floor with his cheek ground into the floorboards and his hands firmly pinned behind his back. Sherlock yanks them up towards his shoulders and John’s bullet wound screams in protest causing him to grunt and choke on his air.

“Don’t hit me,” Sherlock warns. “You won’t like it if you do.”

“Fuck you,” John spits and wriggles as much as he can without dislocating his shoulders. “Let me up and pack it in, Sherlock.”

“No.”

“Fuck!” John yells. “Just stop it! Let me go!” He kicks his feet but Sherlock is sat firmly on his hips and only increases the pressure on his arms. “Go away! Let me go and go away!”

“Now, now,” Sherlock says conversationally. “There’s no way you can declare your monogamy to me without me reacting in some way.”

Each cinch of pressure against his skin and ligaments that sends pain shooting through him as bones grind together makes him want to melt into a boneless puddle and kick the shit out of Sherlock at the same time. He’s never felt so conflicted before. Vaguely, he is aware that he’s fighting the one thing that he’s wanted for weeks and months—for Sherlock to pin him down and take control. He’s dreamed about it, he’s yearned for it, but now that he’s here and it’s happening he feels like it will be yanked away at any moment. Someone is going to say _“You’ve been punked,”_ like that stupid American show and Sherlock is going to smirk at him in an unfriendly way and inform John that his fantasies are _boring_ and completely out of the question.

If he pretends it isn’t happening, if he wrenches himself out of Sherlock’s grasp and runs away, he can get away from this. If he doesn’t let anything good happen, nothing bad can come from it.

But the little voice in his head who has always mourned the fact that no one who was strong enough to pin him down took the chance to also be gentle with him reminds John of the fact that this man, his flatmate, is the man who sends him to bed when he’s exhausted, he’s the man who soothed his bruises and said not a word weeks ago after his unfortunate visit to the man who beat him. This is _Sherlock_ and he trusts him with his life.

He kicks and wriggles but they become less enraged and more desperate. “Please,” he pleads. “Let me go. Just let me go, Sherlock.”

“No,” Sherlock says. Then he leans his weight onto John’s screaming shoulders and bites John on the back of his neck.

A sob explodes out of the doctor. “Please,” he repeats. “Pleasepleasepleaseplease—”

“Hush.”

A quiet descends upon John that sends him rushing deep into his head. All of his struggles stop and he just lays there panting and whimpering quietly.

“Are you done?”

“Yes,” John says tiredly, ready for the games to be over.

“Will you answer my questions?”

John sighs. “Yes.”

Sherlock presses his nose deep into the nape of John’s neck and drags it up through his hair, inhaling some scent that he must find very appealing—judging by the contented growl he rumbles against John’s skin. “I will not repeat myself,” Sherlock warns.

“I gave my word,” John grinds out, “that I would answer your questions.”

“Yes,” Sherlock says with an intent John has rarely heard directed towards him. “You did.”

Sherlock’s fingers tighten around John’s wrist enough that the doctor can feel the bones grinding together in his joints—his fingers twitch—but he merely lays there and accepts it.

“You are attracted to me.”

John snorts out a breath of laughter.

Instantly, Sherlock clamps down with his teeth onto John’s trapezoid hard enough for him to whimper. “Excuse me?” Sherlock says darkly.

“Yes,” John says breathlessly. “I’m attracted to you. Happy?”

“Why?”

“Because you are you.” It’s true—John likes Sherlock because he’s the embodiment of Sherlock. He is no one else, only himself.

“Not enough data—explain.”

“I like you for the attention to details you always give,” rushes out of John’s mouth. “I admire your wits and your sarcasm and how delicate but strong your hands are. Your eyes—I’ve never seen anything like them, and they nearly scare the shite out of me when you _really_ look at me with them, but I think I like that. I like the way you torture your violin when Mycroft is here and you wring mournful tunes out of it when you’re in a dark mood but you play soothing and uplifting ones when I’m thrashing about in my bed during a nightmare. I like how you notice me. I like how you feel against me.”

“Adequate,” Sherlock growls. “Was it Mike who set you up on those dates?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I trust his judgment.”

“You’ve subbed for him.”

John takes a deep breath, almost thinking about not answering, but does before Sherlock’s hands on his wrists can tighten more than just warningly. “Yes, back in uni.”

“He wasn’t your type.”

“No.”

“What is your type?”

“I—”

_“John.”_

“I don’t know,” John answers wearily. “I’ve never had the chance to find out.”

“What do you want?”

John thinks of Sherlock fetching him from the clinic before he passed out, he thinks of his worried voice over the phone after he paid to have himself beaten and the way his gentle hands soothed him when he cared for his bruises. He remembers the way Sherlock’s eyes pinned him as though he was a butterfly on a board when they first met and the way Sherlock appeared to know exactly why John was unhappy in London and what he was missing.

“I want you.”

John isn’t sure how Sherlock does it, but between one moment and the next his arms are stretched above his head with one of Sherlock’s hands pinning them to the floor and Sherlock’s entire length is pressed against his back. They both still have their clothes on, John hasn’t even had the chance to remove his shoes, but the heat of the detective’s body seeps through his skin to his muscles and deep into his bones as Sherlock lays on top of him and reassures him with a hand on his face sliding across his skin and up through his hair that—that he has someone to take care of him.

“No more dating,” Sherlock warns.

John laughs and tucks his face into his arm, trying to hide the relieved and terrified expression on his face. “No,” he agrees. “No more dating.”

“You will listen to me.”

“You’ll let me take care of you—feed you,” John counters.

Sherlock chuckles into his neck and John shudders at the feel of the hot breath gusting across his skin. “When we don’t have a case.”

“Deal—then we’ll have take-away.”

Sherlock barks out another laugh and John realizes that he actually surprised the detective. A warm flush of pleasure skitters up his spine and settles in a blush across his face and the nape of his neck. He’s sure Sherlock notices.

“If I let you up,” Sherlock begins quietly. “Will you run away?”

John takes a deep breath and lets it out shakily. He almost wants to. The only thing scarier than this being a trick, than this being unreal, is this actually coming true.

“John.”

“No,” he answers finally. “I’ll be good.”

“I’m sure you will,” Sherlock says warmly. “When you’re not being an idiot.”

John laughs breathlessly.

He expects his flatmate to just get up, leaving John on the floor, and wait for the doctor to stand up on his own. He remembers being left in the dirt by the officer in Afghanistan and abandoned in the bed at Stephen’s house and shivers—recalling the feeling of being un-tethered and without direction once more.

“C’mon,” Sherlock shifts himself off John’s back but runs his hands down John to his shoulders before winding them under his arms and lifting. “On your knees.”

With Sherlock’s heat against his back and his strength under his shoulders he levers himself from laying on his front to his knees. They kneel together, Sherlock’s front to John’s back, for a few moments—just breathing—and John can’t remember someone ever offering support to John like that before.

“All right?” Sherlock asks. He sounds oddly unsure for someone who always knows the answer to the puzzle, for someone who is always smarter than anyone else in the room, and John realizes that it’s _him_ making Sherlock feel this way. 

He lifts his hands to Sherlock’s arms and shifts them down so that they wrap around his chest. He twines their arms together and leans back into the vee of Sherlock’s knees, completely at ease.

“Yeah,” he says. “All right.”

The kiss pressed to the nape of his neck feels like a promise.

He knows that Sherlock will keep it.

[Epilogue To Come]

**Author's Note:**

> I am not an expert on D/s dynamics in the very least, but the dynamic that Sherlock and John have here is perfectly plausible. Each relationship is different, so do _not_ take the way that they do things as the gospel. Also, this is fanfiction. Take it with a grain of salt--better yet, use the whole shaker. Some of these things I know from experience (the subdrop thanks to an oblivious partner, the simple craving of a hand in the hair as a well done) and others I don't (the profession Dom who is probably a professional Sadist/clubs of any sort). I am also not British, I am American. I had a Brit Picker go over this, but things can be missed--let me know if something sticks out horribly though, yeah?


End file.
